This image was lost some time after publication.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, thinks Larry Ellison, his equivalent at Oracle, is overpaid. Ballmer says of Oracle's compensation: "I find it interesting and probably not that considered a decision to do what [Oracle have] done." (Ellison received about $74 million, while Ballmer received less than a million dollars.) Which is probably true, but I doubt Ballmer would be talking about it if Microsoft's own compensation committee hadn't said that he's "probably underpaid." Or if he wasn't already worth $15 billion, thanks to his holdings of Microsoft stock. Ballmer thinks increasing the value of his 4 percent ownership of Microsoft is enough motivation — but why is the CEO even bringing up the issue?

Since Ballmer assumed the role of CEO in January of 2000, the stock has declined almost 50 percent and has gone sideways for the last 6 years post-antitrust. Despite claiming pay should be commensurate with stock performance, Ballmer's compensation actually increased almost 32 percent this year despite the stock only improving by about 7 percent. (Over the same year, Oracle is up nearly 24 percent.) While executive pay is a real issue, it's never smart for one CEO to start pointing at another. It only invites invidious comparisons.